


Mock Heroic

by RhetoricFemme



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Day Two: Strength of Weakness; Observations, Guidance Counselor!Marco, M/M, MBAW, Marco Bodt Appreciation Week, Reincarnation Insinuation, Soon-to-be-History-Teacher!Jean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-19 04:40:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5953956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RhetoricFemme/pseuds/RhetoricFemme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the midst of personal weakness, it's easy to forget that sometimes others can see us, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mock Heroic

**Author's Note:**

> Just a bit of perspective on this one, since it opens up in the middle of a situation:
> 
> Marco is a high school guidance counselor (and a damn good one), and Jean a grad student/teacher's aide. Incidentally, it's also the high school Jean graduated from. At this point, they've probably known one another for a good five or six months, and are starting to get a better feel of one another.

_I'm the rock at the bottom of where you are falling, and when we kiss you'll be there._  
\--Better than Nothing at All, Admiral Twin

//

The sunlight outside of the small office is waning, leaving room for the fluorescent lights above Marco’s desk to cast a glow onto the room in its own sickly way. Typically, Marco would think nothing of it. Light is light and he’s grateful to have any at all.

On the other hand, today has not behaved itself in standard fashion. It’s left Marco feeling chagrinned at best, as he whiles the remainder of the workday’s hours away.

Considering he’s had years of practice, there is hardly a soul in this world who can tell Marco Bodt his game face isn’t strong. He’d betrayed himself, however, while absently opening the office door with polite inquiry and an all too saccharine grin, only to find Jean standing on the other side. Unfortunately, Marco is not the only guy here with keen observation skills.

Twenty minutes have passed since Jean’s entered the office, and despite the heavier, impromptu subject matter, his presence is less an intrusion and more of a relief.

Truth be told, occasions involving Marco choosing to honestly share himself with others are few and far between.

Whatever paperwork Jean had intended to pawn off has been unceremoniously stuffed into the old messenger bag he carried around, and there was no doubt Marco had unintentionally garnered the entirety of his attention.

“So you had panic attacks when you were little.” Jean is studying Marco from where he slouches in an old arm chair across the room. He repeats back pieces of Marco’s admission; words matter-of-fact and untelling of what he really thinks, though his expression determines he knows more about that sort of thing than his tone might suggest.

”How’d you get past it?”

“Therapy.” Marco offers, surprised at the ease of his self-disclosure. “Breathing and relaxation exercises, mostly. I was big on coping cards for a while.”

“So how old were you when you outgrew it?”

Had it been anyone else been standing outside his office, Marco would have preferred the door remain closed. Let them think he was with a student, bogged down with paperwork, whatever. Were it anyone other than Jean in this exchange—supplementing his end of the conversation with that level, curious drawl to his words—Marco probably would have felt importuned.

Not with Jean, though. And, he supposed, Jean _had_ been candid with pieces of himself long before Marco considered him much more than an endearing punctuation to his work life.

And so, he obliged Jean an honest answer.

“I’ll let you know when I find out. Pretty few and far between, but they still creep up on me from time to time.” Marco pushes to his feet, hands buried in pockets as he lazily saunters closer toward Jean. His expression is distant, and it silences Jean for the fact that this clearly does not happen very often.

“Can’t say it was all bad, though.” Marco continues. “My parents never discounted how I felt, and I had decent therapists. Thankfully, I never felt like I had to worry about reactions to my panicking so much as just getting through the feeling itself. Until middle school, anyways.”

Pausing for a moment, a smile broke across Marco’s face as he went on.

“You know, my right eye got me vision therapy, and then there was the emotional therapy from all that came with it? And _now_ —”

“—And _now_ you’re a guidance counselor.”

Marco hums in confirmation, remembering the tired boy who time and again insisted the monsters were more than able to take leave of the bedroom closet, taking advantage of the muddled periphery through which he never could see.

Seeing through only one eye may have started as his weakness, but never had it been so bad that Marco didn’t prevail in the end. As time and age wore on, he’d learn to look people in the eye regardless of what he might find there, ignoring the quiet inclination that the monsters had stopped hiding behind him, and were now possibly standing front and center.

Noticing the small things became a means of survival; an avenue through which he could unravel reality from the unfounded paranoias and insecurities still ingrained by way of childhood.

“Aw, shit.”  The words fly off of Jean’s tongue, haphazard and lacking grace. Marco watches, confused as Jean ruefully backs away before slinking against the wall, a garbled apology escaping from between the hands now covering his face.

“Jean? What’s the matter?”

“All those times I thought I was being funny? Fucking coming at you from the right, standing just off to the side? Marco, I—“

Cutting him off, Marco clasps at steadfast wrists, attempting to pull fingers away from Jean’s flushed face, but his grip only loosens after Marco’s quiet laughter fills the air.

“I’m such a little shit.”

“Well,” Marco doesn’t dispute it, but bites down on his laughter until the tip of his tongue is peeking from the corner of his mouth, “next time you feel like checking me out you’ll just have to get a little more creative with it.”

Jean is scowling now, in dubious effort to fight the smile vying for purchase on his own face. He doesn’t even bother asking himself how transparent he is, because all it takes is a little time with Marco to realize that somehow, this guy just always seems to know.

“Glad this is a laughing matter for you, Bodt. I’m trying to apologize, here!”

Marco glimpses the pretty shade of red that swathes still-hidden cheeks, despite Jean’s best efforts, and it feels like Fate handing him the final reprieve needed to climb out of his hole. Marco can feel the mirth in his throat, and it’s burgeoning on hysterical. It’s enough to replace his previous frustrations, to shove back the familiar taste of unexplainable insecurity. It’s all Marco needs to feel that long-lost throe of panic disentangle from his chest, and he feels something far more substantial and welcome taking its place.

**Author's Note:**

> Like the last thing I posted, this is attached to an AU I'm writing, albeit an entirely different one than Day One's story. I don't know yet whether or not this is a side piece, or something that could end up in said story, so I guess we'll see!


End file.
